DISNEY CARTOONS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21716, 3 February 1934, Page 12 (Supplement)

DISNEY CARTOONS

LARGE STAFF OF ARTISTS KEENNESS OF CREATOR Six years ago Walt Disney, a 26-year-old commercial and newspaper artist, arrived in Hollywood with 27 dollars. Finding it impossible to get a job or interest producers in his ideas, he borrowed a few hundred dollars from his brother and produced his first cartoon. It created no stir, and he sold it through a minor distributor. From this humble start,.and despite every sort of discouragement, he has gone on to create the long series of Mickey Mouse cartoons and Silly Symphonies that have taken the world by storm. Mr. Disney now employs from 125 to 150 artists, " animators," musicians and other technicians, with an overhead charge of about a million dollars a year, he sells his work to 8000 of the 12,000 theatres which are still operating in' the United States (3000 are closed), and on the average every man, woman and child in the United States sees his work six times a year. In foreign countries he is just as popular. So sensational is his vogue that it has become smart in New York to see " Three Little Pigs" (containing the marvellous " Who'a Afraid of the Big, Bad Wolf?") at least a dozen times. Each Mickey Mouse cartoon consists of some 12,000 drawings, and costs about £SOOO. The Silly Symphonies (in colour) cost about £6OOO. Mr. Disney's cartoons ordinarily bring in at least as much revenue as the average programme picture made with well-known flesh-and-blood -actors, and cost a sixth as much. Mr. Disney has put back into the business all his profits except £4O a week. He still arrives at the studio at 8.30, draws the key pictures (assistants fill in tho gaps), and does all the talking for his Mouse.